(East Timor Problems) We venture out

Today I am going out of mind. I really need to get out of the house as cabin fever is setting in. Moreover, we are in desperate need of bottled water as the one we have has a slow leak and we have therefore run out faster than anticipated. We consulted Senyor about going to the supermarket and whether it would be safe. He thought it would be as the main road had been reopened. Later that afternoon we ventured out. Walking up our little dirt road to the main road we again came across very few people. When we did, we greeted them warmly. We soon found a taxi and negotiated with the driver to take us to the supermarket and home again. The streets were very quiet with hardly any pedestrians, motorcycles or cars but at least there was some human movement.

Only the exit to the supermarket’s parking area was open and the place was full of cars packed to the rafters with boxes of bottled water. “Panic buying”, I remarked to Daniel. The supermarket itself was also buzzing with more people than we had ever seen including many upper-middle class Timorese, few (if any) who have the money to shop at such places. Given that most of the smaller kiosks and markets in Dili were closed, they had little choice but to come to the malae establishments.

I soon noticed that a litre of imported soymilk from Australia had risen from $2.75 to $3 and wondered if this was indicative of all products. Thankfully it wasn’t.

When leaving the supermarket I ran into a colleague and her three children. I asked after her and she said she was fine. She told me that one of our colleagues had fled to Don Bosco and another to the American Embassy; and she had thought that given the situation, I would have returned to Australia. Lae (no) I said emphatically and thought to myself, it would have to be a lot more serious than this!

I endeavoured to purchase a $10 mobile telephone card but the young men selling it to me wanted $11 for it! Huh, capitalism rears its head in Timor after all! I declined, as I knew Daniel had plenty of credit on his phone and within a couple of days, the price was bound to return to normal.

Tonight we watched another of Hayao Miyazaki animated gems Castle in the Sky with an intermission break to watch the local news on television and a televised message from Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri. Both maintained that things had returned to normal and that it was safe to return home and resume normal lives once more. We finished watching the film and then ate Chinese vegetarian dumplings imported from Korea while we watched the penultimate episode of series two of Spooks.

Our home in Rai Kotu

A neighbour's empty home, normally alive with children and adults

One of the more colourful homes in our neighbourhood vacated by its occupants

This pool table is normally surrounded by young men playing a game, today it sits in silence

Our deserted street in Rai Kotu, normally bustling with human and animal activity

Our empty street

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

(East Timor Problems) Return home to Rai Kotu

At 3am this morning we were woken with a start as the text messages I had received twelve hours ago from the Australian Embassy finally came through on Daniel’s mobile phone. For the second time, I said to Daniel, better late than never!

We were finding it very difficult to sleep as our minds and bodies were understandably, stressed by the previous days events. We finally got up and sat on the veranda where the cool morning air was goddess-sent.

Daniel called “our” family and spoke to Senyor Raphael. He was still on his own protecting the three houses (ours, theirs and their slowly being-built new home) as the rest of the family had decamped to the airport next door. He thought the main road might be open again but wasn’t entirely sure. Daniel told him that we were going to try and come home.

Our colleague lives with two of her cousins and one of them, Timor’s weightlifting Para-Olympic champion (he came third at the ASEAN games in Vietnam), had arranged for us to be taken home in his neighbour’s taxi. The driver had been out on the road early this morning and said that despite being quiet, everything looked fine and that the road to Tasi Tolu was open again. We said our farewells and told our colleague we would text her once (if!) we arrived home.

The roads indeed were very quiet, but thankfully there was no signs of any damage to houses or shops along the way. Thinking that things were looking good, we rounded the airport roundabout a kilometre or two before the little street down to our home. Our taxi was greeted by a military roadblock manned with half a dozen F-FDTL (army) fully armed soldiers, one with a rather large automatic machine gun pointed towards us. We got the message we should probably stop. There was also a middle aged man sitting on the road with his hands tied behind his back. They motioned for us to keep going around the roundabout back to town. We assumed they were the currently employed mob of F-FDTL and not the recently sacked ‘591’ mob who had been demonstrating all week.

The driver stopped the car and Daniel got out to ask the soldiers whether we could return home. They said he would need to talk to their commander who was currently on his mobile phone speaking Portuguese to someone at the PNTL (police) to get them to come and take away the suspect. The taxi pulled up under a tree while we waited for Daniel to have his hearing with the commander. We waited for some minutes while the driver and our colleague’s cousin grew more and more edgy. Daniel was still waiting when the cousin said it would probably be best if I got out so they could return home. I paid the driver $2 and got out of the car just as Daniel was given permission by the commander to return home in the taxi. Daniel was confused and asked where the taxi had gone and I said, home!

The commander initially told Daniel that the situation was still bad and we couldn't go past. Daniel talked about needing our passports and other important documents and that we had talked with “our” family and he said the area was peaceful. Eventually the commander jumped in a car with three armed soldiers and went ahead, telling us we could walk back to our home. So we walked down the main road towards Rai Kotu and on the way passed the coffee stalls which had been trashed, many bags of coffee broken and spread over the ground, others intact. One house had been completely burned and was just a still-warm collapsed shell. Even though we see many burned out houses every day it is slightly scary to see one still smoking. Although it is the people of the west who grow the coffee, apparently these sellers were all from the east, hence they were targeted by the marauding youths.

It was a bit nerve racking to walk down the road as there were very few people about. There were piles of ashes and remnants from tyres that had been set on fire on the road. The small dirt roads that lead off towards the beach were blocked by long steel poles. When we finally reached the first of the two roads that lead down to our house, we were greeted by another military checkpoint, however this young man didn't seem very interested in us. As we walked down our road we were greeted by two soldiers with automatic weapons and a group of our neighbours all huddled together along with a car packed to the rafters. We greeted the soldiers and explained that their commander had allowed us to return home. One of the soldiers was especially friendly and shook both our hands while explaining that he was trying to convince our neighbours to stay put and not to flee as there was no need to. I think they thought it was good for their community relations exercise that the malae were returning home. We greeted all of our neighbours that we saw warmly and were greeted warmly in return.

Apart from a truck with two young men hoping to get in and leave the neighbourhood, there weren’t any other people in sight. Our neighbourhood is normally a bustling hive of activity with tens of children and their parents on the street. It felt very strange as if all of a sudden the place had become a ghost town. House after house was closed and bordered up, their occupants having either fled to the airport, the hills of Dili or back to their respective districts.

As we turned the bend of our street for the final leg of the journey to our house, again, there was deathly silence as not a soul was about. We approached “our” family’s house and called out to Senyor Raphael who soon appeared. He seemed happy to see us again and gave us more details as to what had happened since yesterday.

When the demonstration turned violent outside the government building, some of the ‘591’ and gangs of youths returned to Tasi Tolu where mayhem ensued. Some attacked the coffee sellers we had passed on the road and then proceeded to attack store holders in Tasi Tolu. The communities of Rai Kotu and Tasi Tolu soon starting fleeing en masse, particularly when they began hearing gun fire. Most of our immediate neighbours had fled including our ema boot (big/important people) next door neighbours who had returned to the districts. “Our” family along with the hundreds or thousands who had fled to the airport were being moved to Don Bosco, a Catholic mission further up the road towards the hills. Senyor said that our passports, money and laptop were with his family anticipating we would need them in case we were evacuated. We thanked him for being so considerate but began to wonder how we would retrieve them if we indeed needed them! We also cursed the fact that we didn’t have the laptop on which to write blog posts and to watch DVDs!

We spent the whole day indoors, tense while listening to Radio Australia who kept repeating the same story about Timor over and over again until the afternoon. We learnt that two people had died: both civilians who were killed by shop owners defending their property, and upwards of forty people were injured. These figures were much less than the various ones we had heard on the rumour mill train of Dili. After three hours of just sitting and listening to the radio, I decided to see if I could read a book instead and began reading Menagerie 4, a collection of literary work by Balinese and Indonesian writers. At various times throughout the course of the day we heard noises that sounded like gun fire but we couldn’t be sure over the din of the overhead fan and stand alone fan, both of which were on full blast to cool our overheated bodies.

Mid afternoon, Atoby, the fourth child of “our” family returned home along with two teenage boys who live opposite and who are related. Senyor said that he wanted to be with his dad while the rest of the family had been moved to Don Bosco. We continued to read, listen to the radio for any updates, and snooze fitfully.

Not long before sunset, the rest of “our” family began returning home in small groups with our belongings. We were happy to see them safe and well and to have back our laptop. Daniel soon typed up some notes for blog posts.

That night was watched the evening news and were amused to discover that the commander whom Daniel had to seek permission from to return home, was in fact the F-FDTL Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Colonel Lere Anan Timor, the highest ranking military man currently in the country! We also learnt that the F-FDTL had taken control of the airport, Rai Kotu and Tasi Tolu while the PNTL (police) were in control of the rest of Dili. If gunshots were heard, it was in all probability just the F-FDTL firing into the air. Xanana had visited all the major refugee sites within Dili to talk to the people gathered there, to answer their questions and to persuade them to return home and be calm. Ramos-Horta asked Timor's journalists to give the message to the community that it should stay calm and not panic; they had a responsibility not to spread panic or make things worse.

That evening we watched a DVD called Kinky Boots, a delightful British comedy that made us forget momentarily where we were. It was inspired by the true story of a traditional English men's footwear factory in Northamptonshire which turned to production of kinky boots for transvestites in order to save the ailing family business and safeguard the jobs of the local community.

We again found it difficult to sleep as we didn’t know if anything was going to happen or not.

Remnants of burnt tires on the road (just past the roundabout) to Rai Kotu and Tasi Tolu

A destroyed coffee seller's home on the road to Rai Kotu and Tasi Tolu

A destroyed home on the juncture of the road to the airport and Rai Kotu and Tasi Tolu

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

(East Timor Problems) Unable to return home

Upon receiving reports that the road from the airport out to our neighbourhood was closed due to disturbances in Tasi Tolu, a Timorese colleague of Daniel’s invited us to spend the night at her house in Bebora near Vila Verde. We gladly accepted her kind offer.

We waited for a car to return to take us to Bebora but as darkness descended on Dili, we decided to walk the kilometre or so distance to the colleague’s house rather than make the journey in the dark (car or no car!). The street on which Daniel’s NGO is located is a dead end, but we were guided or smuggled by the locals through various front and back yards until the way through was found. We passed under laundry hanging out to dry, women feeding children, dogs, pigs and chickens until we came out on to the main road, saving us quite a walk and avoiding the main road.

Upon entering our colleague’s house, we were a little alarmed to see an enormous packed suitcase waiting at the inside of the front door. We asked what it was for and she said it was there in case we have to leave in a hurry. We felt this to be an ominous sign. Our colleague motioned for us to sit in the stiffling and fanless front room of her house. We soon began to perspire. We asked if she had a television that we could watch the evening news on but she replied no, she didn’t have one. It still amazes me how very middle class, well educated Timorese do not have some of the material goods that we would expect in the West. I felt totally cut off from what was really going on and knew I would have to rely on rumours for any information. For better or worse, these are always plentiful here.

Reluctantly we asked our colleague if the neighbourhood was loromonu (west) or lorosa’e (east) and to our relief she said the former. We knew then that we would be relatively safe, primarily because most of the troubles seemed to be occurring in mixed neighbourhoods, but secondly because most of the trouble seemed to be aimed at lorosa’e Timorese.

Soon after our arrival I received the following text message (twice) from the Australian Embassy in Dili:

Aust. travel advice updated 28/04 – advise against unneccessary travel in Dili esp at night and around govt. bldgs, Tasi Tolu and Taibesi and Comoro markets.

We spent most of the evening sitting outside on the verandah where we were attacked by some ferocious mosquitoes. The thought of contracting malaria or dengue fever was not, however, uppermost in our minds. Our colleague brought out her photo albums and we happily devoured their contents as a form of distraction. We were a little envious however of the photos of our home city Melbourne, where our colleague had visited twice last year to attend conferences on Timor. One photo was of our colleague as she gave a talk at a workshop at the Cooperating with Timor-Leste conference, which I attended and remembered her very well. Little did I know then, that I would end up spending the night in her house due to a violent outbreak on the streets of her home town!.

Our colleague is the eldest of six children: four girls and two boys. She was born and educated in Dili before leaving for Kupang in Indonesian West Timor where she studied and graduated in law. All of her nuclear family now resides in Kupang except a sister who lives in Dili and works for the government. Since arriving in Timor we have slowly got to know her and like and respect her immenseley. She is a beautiful human being: both physically and spiritually and I feel very fortunate to have met her.

We shared a late meal together, most of which was the food Daniel’s female colleagues had prepared for their NGO’s fifth birthday celebration, but due to the outbreak of violence, unsurprisingly only two guests showed up and the event was cancelled. We ate white rice, a green leafy vegetable and mixed vegetables with chopped boiled eggs. Exhausted we all then went to bed. Our colleague had given up her room for us while she slept in the room that her parents use when they come to Dili. Despite having two mattresses on the bed (one of which our colleague put on the bed especially for us, knowing from experience when we stayed in Ainaro together with other colleagues for human rights training (see Atauro Island and Human Rights training in Ainaro) that I found the thin mattress uncomfortable) the bed was still hard. We tried to sleep but our minds were too unsettled.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

(East Timor Problems) Under siege in Dili

After lunch I made my way to the mikrolete (minibus) stop in Kolmera (Dili) near Daniel’s place of work. All the number 10 mikrolete were packed to the rafters so I waited under the shade of a gum tree. After about 30 minutes, the Chinese Timorese owned electronics shop across the road hurriedly closed its doors and people started running down the street. I wondered what was going on and thought perhaps it was due to one of the many rumours that pass as news in Timor.

I continued to wait under a tree but no mikrolete came. Not long after, lots of cars, motorbikes and people started running up the street towards the hills. Then the police appeared in their 4WDs many with mean looking guns. They motioned to people to get off the streets and people began running. I thought it was time to make my way to Daniel’s workplace and proceeded to walk quickly, while my heart beat a little faster than usual.

As I approached Daniel’s street I noticed a group of men at the end of it and wondered if they were part of the Kolmera martial arts group (gang) which were recently involved in the death of a young man. The heavy gates to Daniel’s work place were closed but as I peered through the bars I saw Daniel and some of his colleagues under the marquee, set up for a celebration planned for tonight. I motioned to him to let me in.

I was relieved as I entered the gates as I had been growing quite frightened. Upon entering I noticed two little children, relatives of two of Daniel’s Timorese colleagues and I made an effort to smile so as not to worry them.

One of Daniel’s malae (white foreigner) colleagues, whose last day it was today at their NGO, was wondering if we should all try and head home rather than stay put in Kolmera. The area is renowned as a problem neighbourhood because of the martial arts groups (gangs) and the mixed community. There are Chinese Timorese along with people from the west and east of the country, which makes for a volatile mix when tensions arise.

People were trying to use their mobile telephones and the single landline but the system was jammed. After a couple of attempts, I managed to get through to the AVI Country Manager who arrived in Timor last week and who will now be based in Timor instead of Australia. She is staying at a hotel near the government building. She advised to stay put.

The Internet connection was also down and with no radio at hand, it felt very unsettling not to have a link to the outside world. Radio Australia has disappeared from the airwaves of Dili yet again (when they will return is anybody’s guess), so we would be reliant on local radio in Tetum, Portuguese or Bahasa Indonesia.

During the course of the afternoon, I received the following text message (five times) from the Australian Embassy in Dili (while Daniel has yet to receive it!):

Reminder from Embassy. Exercise caution. We recommend all Aust stay well clear of any gatherings and demonstrations, as they have the potential to escalate.

This message comes on top of the one I received (three times) on Monday which read:

Emb suggests Australians stay away from protest. Protest expected to start today 24th, Tasi Tolu, GPA, Lu Olo’s Office & Palace of Ashes till 28th Enq (phone number)

One of Daniel’s malae colleagues arrived in a badly damaged car driven by another malae woman. Most of the car’s windows had been smashed with rocks which sat on the dashboard as testament. The car had been parked outside the government building while the two women ate lunch together in a nearby malae restaurant. As they left the restaurant, they noticed about a hundred young men wielding long sticks and rocks which they were using to damage parked cars. Then the tear gas appeared and suffering the consequences of it, the two women made a hasty retreat back to the restaurant to wash their eyes before going back outside to collect their car.

What appears to have happened is that disturbances have occurred next to the government building in the heart of the city, about a kilometre from here. Young men have destroyed property and set buildings and cars on fire. It is unclear whether these men are part of the ‘591’ sacked military, members of martial arts groups (gangs) or random individuals. Given the situation has been mostly calm all week with the ‘591’ conducting themselves peacefully, I would guess that it is the gangs taking advantage of the situation but I cannot be sure. (The unemployment rate for young people in Dili is 40% and some young male members channel their frustrations vis-à-vis martial arts groups.)

At around 3pm Daniel and some of his colleagues ventured beyond the gates to see if people had returned to the streets of Kolmera. They had so some of Daniel’s colleagues tentatively left the premises and headed for home.

The situation remains tense. We have heard reports of people throwing rocks at bis (bus) headed for the east to Baukau and Lospalos. Many Dili residents are also fleeing to the surrounding hills. One of Daniel’s Timorese colleagues is convinced things are only going to get worse. He even asked us that if we are evacuated to Australia, would we take him with us!

What a fragile democracy is Timor.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Compromising justice in East Timor

Far Eastern Economic Review - April 2006

“Jill Jolliffe -- In October 1999, Indonesian troops filed silently through the smoldering remains of East Timor's capital, Dili, and on to its port. Their sullen embarkation signified the end of a bloody imperial adventure which began in the former Portuguese colony 24 years before. The Suharto dictatorship had fallen. United Nations officials in New York were busy drafting resolutions which would shape a new country about to rise from the ashes. Recently arrived UN peacekeepers observed the historic departure.They had been sent to restore order after violence accompanying an overwhelming pro-independence vote in August.Around 1,400 people had died and countless others were injured or missing in the violence unleashed by the departing Indonesians and their Timorese militias. Another quarter million had been forcibly deported to Indonesian (West) Timor.As the peacekeepers continued to arrive, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan commissioned five international jurists, led by Costa Rican expert Sonia Picado, to visit Timor, assess breaches of international law and recommend UN action.The team advised:Victims... must not be forgotten in the rush of events to redefine relations in the region, and their basic human rights to justice, compensation and the truth must be fully respected.It stressed "the need to act against impunity in order to discourage future violations of human rights" and recommended that the UN establish an international tribunal to judge "those accused ... of serious violations of fundamental human rights and international humanitarian law...."The secretary-general's response was to pass the Picado report to the Security Council without endorsing its recommendations. The Council voted instead to establish a two-pronged system of justice for East Timor. A special court in Jakarta would try Indonesian perpetrators, while a UN-funded Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) in Dili would prepare cases to be tried before international panels of judges.It also approved a truth commission for Dili, the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (known by its Portuguese acronym, CAVR), to collect testimony on human-rights violations committed between Portugal's botched April 1974 decolonization and Indonesia's 1999 withdrawal. Its brief was to reconcile perpetrators of minor crimes with their communities, while referring serious crimes to the SCU for prosecution.Two important points to note are that, firstly, the resolution assumed that democracy was complete in Indonesia, that the reformasi process begun before Suharto's fall in May 1998 had succeeded. This is still not the case. Some enlightened reforms, including decentralization of power and direct election of all political representatives, have been instituted, but military figures still exercise inordinate influence. Secondly, the resolution concerned only war crimes committed in 1999, despite a clamor by the East Timorese public for redress in cases stretching back throughout the 24-year Indonesian occupation. As a result, many Timorese distrusted the UN's justice arrangements, not believing Jakarta capable of trying its own military officers who had ordered and directed the bloodshed. The SCU prosecutions in Dili were viewed more positively, even if their power was limited.Seven years on and millions of dollars later, these various strands of the justice process have been tested and found wanting. There is discontent with the UN's performance and a tendency by UN, Timorese and Indonesian leaders to meet criticism by patching together inferior solutions without consulting victims, or civil society in general.By the time the UN was due to pull out of East Timor on May 20, 2005, the Jakarta court known as the Ad Hoc Tribunal had tried a mere 18 men accused of orchestrating the violence, mostly senior Indonesian officers. All were acquitted except Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterres, whose five-year sentence was increased to 10 years on appeal.The SCU prosecutions in Dili had more to show, but also disappointed. International judges tried perpetrators by due legal process, but although 317 people had been indicted by May 2005, only 74 had been convicted. East Timorese militiamen were behind bars, but not their Indonesian commanders.The reason was that although the UN transitional administration in Dili had signed an April 2000 extradition agreement with Jakarta, President Megawati Sukarnoputri reneged on the deal. Most of those indicted still enjoy sanctuary in Indonesia.In a bid to raise the psychological stakes, Timorese SCU chief Longuinhos Monteiro negotiated local police membership of Interpol. "Wanted" notices of indicted Indonesians now appear on the organization's Web sites, and when they travel abroad they risk arrest by Interpol agents and handover to Dili police.In early 2005 the UN secretary-general ordered a new report to determine why the 1999 Security Council resolution had failed. But even before the three-person commission began work, a new scheme was being hatched by politicians to satisfy the clamor for justice without actually delivering it. The CAVR had not handed in the report of its investigation into the violations of 1974-99, yet a new truth and reconciliation commission was underway, undermining CAVR's credibility.The idea of a bilateral Indonesian-East Timorese commission as an alternative to prosecuting war criminals had been raised earlier by Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta. By year's end a deal was in place between President Yudhoyono and East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao. This second Truth and Friendship Commission consisted of five Indonesian and five Timorese commissioners. Presented as a project to facilitate truth-telling by Indonesian officials, it offered an amnesty to those who testified. Former Indonesian Defense Minister Gen. Wiranto, indicted for war crimes in Dili but untouchable in Indonesia, was a desired witness.Its Timorese supporters argue that its truth-telling functions, facilitated by the amnesty, will assist President Yudhoyono to effect reforms within the military. They contend that by advancing Indonesian democracy it will serve Timorese interests (failing to consider that the commission could equally be a tool for Mr. Yudhoyono to vanquish political rivals).The commissioners sought access to sensitive testimony in SCU and CAVR archives, triggering fears this material might end up in Jakarta's secret police files. The Timorese commissioners were mainly recruited from the CAVR under pressure from President Gusmao's office. The Indonesian commissioners include West Timorese archbishop Petrus Turang and retired general Agus Widjojo, billed as a "respected reformist general." In 2001 Mr. Widjojo told a Jakarta conference that human-rights training was unsuitable for Indonesian soldiers because it interfered with their performance.In Dili, critics underlined that the commission had not been debated publicly, and the influential Roman Catholic Church, which advocates war-crimes trials, expressed its dissent in a letter to Mr. Annan.Meanwhile, the UN experts presented their findings on May 26, 2005, six days after the bulk of UN personnel had withdrawn from Dili. Their findings echoed those of the Picado report. They said the ad hoc trials in Jakarta showed "scant respect for relevant international standards" and recommended retrials, or, if Indonesia did not comply within six months, a war-crimes tribunal.The report called on the Security Council to extend the SCU's work for two years.On the bilateral Truth and Friendship Commission, UN experts urged the international community to withhold financial support "unless the two governments reconsider the terms of reference," saying the impunity offer violates international law. The experts also found "an absence of political will and government support in [East Timor] for the continuation of the serious crimes process, which impedes... bringing to justice those responsible for crimes against humanity..."Josi Andrade is an energetic parliamentarian for the governing Fretilin party. Officially he supports its impunity policy, but as a torture survivor his personal feelings tend to be at odds with the party line. He was arrested in 1999 in the border town of Maliana by Lieut.-Col. Siagian Burhanuddin, whose face now features on Interpol posters. Beaten insensible on Mr. Burhanuddin's orders during interrogation, Mr. Andrade was blinded in his right eye by blows from rifle butts. The SCU indictment brought him a sense of relief, but it could be dropped, leaving Mr. Andrade's torturer permanently at large.There are an estimated 10,000 former political prisoners from the Indonesian period in East Timor. A sample of 45 recent in-depth interviews by the archival project Living Memory showed that more than 90% had also been tortured. Of these, a substantial proportion had suffered severe torture, defined by practices such as the application of electric shocks and the extraction of fingernails or toenails with pliers. The ex-prisoners are a forgotten group who struggle with personal demons, untreated injuries and anger over the injustice of impunity.The capacity of the justice issue to generate tension was demonstrated when the 2,500-page CAVR report was finally tabled in late 2005. Based on 8,000 witness interviews, it was a damning litany of Indonesian abuses, blaming Jakarta for more than 100,000 deaths from killings, starvation and disease during the occupation.President Gusmao delivered a copy to the UN secretary-general in January. The president told reporters that East Timor would not be seeking reparations from Jakarta. Nevertheless, Mr. Yudhoyono canceled a scheduled meeting with the Timorese president and relations chilled.Mr. Annan has not responded to a September request from the Security Council for guidance on the latest experts' report. He is bound to speak before the UN's current Timor mandate expires in May, but insiders predict he will once again ignore anti-impunity resolutions and the very advisors he commissioned, allowing the justice issue to fester. At the end of his term, it would not be costly for the secretary-general to take a principled, if unpopular, stand. Such a stand might even secure his reputation in history, but his legacy looks like being otherwise.East Timor's vain quest for justice is a casualty of the new world order in which Indonesia's value as a moderate Muslim power supporting the war against terrorism outweighs its undemocratic shortcomings. It is, however, also a victim of international cynicism, which could see East Timor revert to its former status as a forgotten territory that lacks the international leverage necessary to redress decades of violence and abuse that still haunt those who live there.”

[Ms. Jolliffe is a free-lance journalist working on The Living Memory Project, a video archive of testimony by East Timor's former political prisoners. She recently shared the award of Journalist of the Year 2006 from Yale University's Globalist magazine.]

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

(East Timor Problems) Sacked soldiers to demo next week

“Minister of Interior, Rogério Lobato told the media in a press conference Wednesday, that the police have given authorization for the ‘petitioners group’ to hold their protest. Lobato said his department received a notification from the group, informing him of their plans to hold a demonstration starting on Monday until Thursday. He reiterated that as a democratic nation, citizens of Timor-Leste have the right to protest, but added that ‘if the protesters commit a crime, police will shoot’. The Minister of Interior said the work of the police is to provide security to the protesters as well as the community therefore PNTL will be in control of the security to prevent any crimes that can affect the stability of the nation. According to media reports, Lobato also stated during the conference, that he has already received information that some political parties, embassies and priests are supporting the ‘petitioners group’ noting that police have also identified some people who are providing food to the ‘petitioners’. Lobato said police would patrol the airport and the borders to detain anyone contributing to the destabilization, from fleeing the country. He also appealed to the community not to panic as police would provide security 24 hours and he asked the heads and chiefs of villages to work together with the police in identifying new faces within their community and to question the purpose of their stay as many youths are now travelling to Dili to participate in the protest. He said police will identify the venue where the group plans to demonstrate and that participants will be searched to guarantee that they are not carrying any weapons. He asked all to maintain law and order.

The media also reported that the spokesperson of the ‘petition group’, Salsinha Gastão, as saying that the scheduled protest is to demand the sovereign state to speed up a solution to the problem adding, “if it is not resolved within the fours days, we don’t know what will happen to this country. It is not we who are destroying the nation but the sovereign bodies for not wanting to resolve it,” he said, adding “We have been too patient during the last three months and we have exhausted our patience. We were once slaves and we don’t want to be forever slaves, therefore the leaders must give attention to this problem”. Gastão said the people planning to participate in the demonstration include the group and their families and asked police not to be in dismay as it will be a peaceful action. He stated that the group is only receiving support from their families and people from 10 Districts and not from embassies and political parties as reported. According to the media, Salsinha Gastão believes that the demonstration will run smoothly but emphasized there must be a solution. He questions the functioning ability of the established commission and asks why they are investigating the victims and not the suspects. He also appealed to the commission to act impartially.”

Source: Timor Post, Suara Timor Lorosae & Diario Nacional (from UNOTIL Public Information Office, Daily Media Review)

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Páskua in Baukau: Kolega foun

Upon waking Saturday morning, I went for a walk west along the dirt road which passed the small group of fisher people’s huts, up on to the plateau past the rice paddy fields and down again to another white sandy beach which included the remains of an old Portuguese fort and a no longer functioning bathroom.

The bird calls were again melodious and I managed to spot a colourful kingfisher before it flew off further away into the tree foliage. At least one tree was deciduous and it had begun to drop its very large red leaves. I wondered what species it was and wished I had a reference book on the flora and fauna of Timor. Upon ascending another plateau I spotted a number of fishermen in their boats out at sea, and some of them called up to me “Hello Missus” and Senyora. I was amazed at how far their voices travelled as I also heard a number of them singing. It was a very pleasant hour’s walk.

Following breakfast on Saturday, we got talking to the Australian couple and soon found we really enjoyed their company. They were thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate, and humble people with an obvious left of centre social justice bent.

Originally from Adelaide, married at 22 years of age and had their first child a year later. In 1986 at the age of 26 they left Australia for a two year post to Vanuatu where he worked as a secondary school teacher and she gave birth to their second child.

They then moved to the Solomon Islands for four years where he again taught and she gave birth to their third and fourth children. She also home schooled the eldest two while studying for her BA part time over ten years initially through the University of the South Pacific.

They spent six years in the Pacific before returning to Australia in 1992. He went on to do post graduate studies including a Masters by research on how Solomon Islands children learn and a PhD thesis on how the different generations of Vietnamese immigrant children in Australia fared in the education system.

His last paid position in Australia was as an academic in the faculty of education of a public university in New South Wales. They have come to Timor for three years as he has a contract working on primary education with UNICEF and she is doing her master’s by research on the friendship city agreements between Australia and Timor.

Although Daniel could be their son (I am a little too old for that), the age difference between us didn’t matter a bit (in fact, throughout my life I have always preferred the company of older people).

I told them about my “problems” with living in Timor and for the first time since arriving in Timor (Daniel excepting), I received an empathic hearing. They too had experienced the same issues, such as the dependency of the locals including the dollar sign on one’s forehead and the total lack of interest people show towards you and what hard work it is to form relationships. Not to mention the deeply entrenched patriarchal nature of many of the societies and how completely and utterly repressed and oppressed most of the women and children are.

But they persisted in trying to form relationships even though they indeed had to do most of the work, and in the end they found it worthwhile, although it wasn’t quick or easy. What it took was pasiénsia (patience), an often used word in Timor, which I do not have in abundant supply.

They asked us if we had any plans for lunch and we said that we wanted to go to the Pousada which they had also planned to do. So they drove us up the 7km steep and windy road which explained why I was so exhausted after the “3km” trip down! Lonely Planet’s guide to East Timor states it as a 5km walk and the online Unofficial Guide to East Timor a mere 3km! Well I’m here to tell you that both are wrong, it’s 7km!

The Pousada’s restaurant is absolutely gorgeous with the best architecture I’ve seen in Timor. The windows are floor length which command beautiful views across Old Town down to the ocean. Unfortunately the food didn’t match the architecture as the offering for vegetarians was paltry (Portugal is not renowned for its vegetarian cuisine).

So we settled on a very small vegetable soup (a broth with only two kinds of diced and chopped vegetables) and a very small salad of lettuce, cucumber, tomato and carrot. I was still very hungry so ordered a vegetable omelet which in contrast to the first two dishes was so enormous, I went halves with Daniel. We followed this with a crème brule type dessert which was too runny and not very tasty. Still we enjoyed the atmosphere and more importantly the company.

Our new friends shouted us lunch (they know from experience what it’s like to live on a volunteer allowance) and Daniel and I then walked the short trip to the Piscina de Baukau for an afternoon swim in the stream fed pool.

It soon began to rain, sending the hordes of children and teenagers scurrying for home, which pleased us as I couldn’t decide how to enter the pool in a modest fashion. Despite my one piece bathing suit, there was no place dry near the pool to drop my sarong at the last moment, so I sat on the edge of the pool in both my sarong and t-shit and slowly took off the former and quickly took off the latter before jumping in (hopefully) unseen. I proceeded to do about twelve laps and that just about did me in (I haven’t swum laps for a couple of years although when I lived in London, I did so a couple of times a week). I then swapped with Daniel as one of us needed to keep an eye on our personal belongings.

We paid 50c each for the swim and went and sat outside the gate to wait for a number A3 mikrolete back down to Osolata. We waited and waited and waited as we watched the A1s and A2s pass. Daniel asked a group of young Timorese men and later young boys, if the A3 ran on a Saturday and they all said yes until 6pm and that we should keep waiting. We waited for what turned out to be nearly an hour and a half with me fast losing my limited supply of pasiénsia.

We guessed by the position of the sun that it was around 5:30pm and in all the time we waited, hadn’t seen an A3 come back up from Osolata. Perhaps they’d decided to all take the afternoon off; after all it was páskua. Daniel stopped a private mikrolete and negotiated with them to take us down for $3. They originally wanted $10 which was extreme given that the fare would normally be 10c each!

When we finally arrived back at the bungalow just before 6pm, we told our Australian friends about our misfortune and they said that they were soon going to come back up to see whether we were stranded. I thought this was very considerate of them and my affection for them both grew more.

Dinner that night was again etu mutin, kankun, sopa mie and salada with mantolun da’an and two more mantolun da’an each in a spicy chili sauce. I was wondering what my cholesterol reading would be like after four days of eating so many mantolun!

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Páskua in Baukau: Páskua sesta

I didn’t sleep all that well (usual for me in a new bed), but we woke up early (as in Dili the roosters began at 4am).

Breakfast consisted of freshly baked small Portuguese white paun (bread) rolls which were quite yummy, and which I ate with keiju (cheese, Kraft slices also from Indonesia) and one with vegemite, a small jar of which I had brought with us.

As I don’t like coffee, I had thought ahead and also brought along the little individual packets of ginger and sugar tea from Singapore we enjoy every morning at home. Locally cultivated hudi (bananas), ai-dila (papaya/paw paw) and sabraka-lotuk (mandarins) were also served along with sweet biscuits from Indonesia and another lot of locally made Portuguese biscuits. Upon returning to our hut, we noticed a hudi-hun (banana tree) growing on the property with little tiny weenie hudi just sprouting (photo to come). Daniel remains amazed at how bananas begin their lives...

We proceeded to wile away the day reading, snoozing and taking a midday swim to cool down. We decided to forgo lunch as we knew it would be the same again for dinner, so instead ate a handful of mixed nuts from Singapore purchased in Dili.

The sole remaining guest of the night before departed early that morning and during the course of the afternoon we welcomed three car loads of new visitors: a couple from New Zealand, a couple from Australia and four women who work for the UN. Another carload of UN women stayed in the beach house, a short walk from the four traditional bungalows.

The bungalows were pleasant enough but they weren’t designed very well. For starters they were far too big: they slept five people when most malae come alone, as a couple, or as friends; they could have been half the size which would have left room to build twice as many. Each had its own bathroom which was probably unnecessary and in the concrete floor as decoration were raised shells (raised a little too high) which were incredibly uncomfortable to walk over. The water was scalding hot during the day and freezing cold in the morning and evening due to the pipes exposure to the sun. Then there was the lack of light; if you didn’t open the four shutters and door, you were left in the dark. It did however give one an appreciation of what it is like to live in a traditional Timorese house as they are very dark and oppressive! At least we had a concrete floor and there was no fire burning in the corner!

Comparing the bungalows to the ones on the eco-resort on Atauro Island, it is very clear that the latter were designed with much more planning and an understanding of what malae want. We certainly prefer the ones on Atauro, but the scenery in Osolata is more to our liking (lush as opposed to dry). Despite the bungalows shortcomings in design, we would have highly recommended the place.

Dinner that night was most enjoyable because of the presence of tempe (fermented soya beans). Again we ate etu mutin, kankun, sopa mie and salada but instead of mantolun da’an we were served with stir fried and marinated tempe which was delicious. We ate with our two new New Zealand friends who had only recently arrived in Timor.

The UN women had obviously decided to make this long weekend an enjoyable one, but not the quiet one the rest of us had envisaged. They had purchased wine in Dili and proceeded to drink it while giggling through the night. This went on until the electricity was switched off (like most of the towns in Timor that have electricity, power is only available from 6pm to midnight).

One of the women then got into her UN vehicle which was parked outside our bungalow, and proceeded to rev the engine as she tried (while intoxicated?) to negotiate her way between the coconut palms down onto the dirt road. I wondered where the hell she was going at this time of night, and the next day discovered she was merely driving to the beach house which was a simple five minute walk away! Needless to say I wasn’t very impressed with these young women, particularly as at least one of them liked walking around in nothing more than a skimpy two piece bikini, even when she walked to and from the house to collect her group’s meals!

As in Bali, malae in Timor can be incredibly disrespectful of the local traditional and conservative culture of the people.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Páskua in Baukau: Baa Osolata

We disembarked the bis in New Town, a settlement that sprung up during Indonesian times and which has nothing very interesting about it for outsiders like us. We jumped on a local mikrolete which took us to the colonial era Old Town and the roundaboud at the bottom of the Pousada de Baukau (or Hotel Flamboyant, its Portuguese era name). You can’t miss the place as it is painted in “Portuguese pink” (flamingo pink) colour! Many other Portuguese buildings remain standing but most such as the Mercardo Municipal (market) are derelict and in need of renovation.

Daniel said that it was a 3km walk down to Osolata, a small fishing village on the sea and as he wasn’t sure that mikrolete went down the paved road we decided to walk it (he had after all, done this once before on a work trip). It soon became apparent that mikrolete number A3 did in fact go to the beach but as we believed the walk was a mere 3km, we decided to keep walking.

As we did, I was surprised to hear the local children shout out to us “photo, photo”. Unlike in Dili where its “dollar, dollar”, the kids of Baukau had obviously been trained by visiting malae to ask for their photo. Perhaps they were also expecting to be paid for it! It soon became very annoying.

The walk down was beautiful as it follows the fresh water spring under enormous Banyan trees and over short waterfalls out to the sea. Importantly the spring irrigates the coconut groves and rice paddies which the local people grown who inhabit the area. The people live in the traditional thatched houses of the Makasai.

The walk seemed to be much longer and unfortunately for me, steeper than I was led to believe. My knee problem (one leg slightly shorter than the other) soon surfaced and after glancing at the time, knew that it must be more than 3km to Osolata. One hour and ten minutes later, we arrived at our destination, hot, sweaty, and exhausted with one angry throbbing knee. We promptly “checked in” to Baukau Beach Bungalows, put our backpacks inside our allotted traditional hut and went for a swim in the warm sea at Pantai Wataboo (an Indonesian name), a beautiful white sand beach right on our doorstep. This area used to be Baukau’s port and the abandoned Portuguese casa alfándega (customs house) fronts the beach. This derelict building could be turned into a magnificent restaurant or holiday apartments.

The scenery was very beautiful and the atmosphere serene. Apart from us, there was only one other guest and we felt pretty much like we had the place to ourselves. The bird calls were numerous and we wondered what they all were. Finally, wildlife!

We ate a typically Timorese lunch: a salada (salad) consisting of alfase (lettuce), pepinu (cucumber) and tomate (tomato) with mantolun da’an (boiled eggs) dowsed in mina (oil), etu mutin (white rice) and kankun (aquatic spinach-like plant). Afterwards, we spent the afternoon lazing about, reading and sleeping.

At sunset, we walked the short distance to the beach and were amazed to see a bright full moon suspended between and framed by two coconut trees to the east. It was a glorious sight. We sat down in the sand and watched the moon slowly make its journey westwards, while to the west the sun slowly sank beneath the horizon leaving in its wake bright orange trails.

Dinner consisted of exactly the same as lunch except we were also served sopa mie (packet noodles loaded with MSG from Indonesia, a bit like two minute noodles in Australia) and a can of coke. Mmmm I thought if this is it for lunch and dinner for four days, I think I might get a little bored. The owners were quite agitated that we had left our windows open while we ate dinner, but we thought nothing much of it.

I went to bed happy as the stresses of Dili had left me already and I felt quite relaxed.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Páskua in Baukau: Dili baa Baukau

We spent Páskua (Easter) in Baukau, the main town and Episcopal see of eastern East Timor in the Makasai-speaking region (population 104,000). Located 124km east of Dili. Unable to afford the $75 a day cost of renting the smallest available 4WD, we decided to draw on some of the courage which brought us here in the first place and catch a local bís (bus), which we discovered few of the Dili based AVIs had ever done!

Argentina and her doben (sweetheart/boyfriend) Alberto were leaving home at 5am Thursday morning for Alberto’s home town of Venilale which lies approximately half way between Baukau and Vikeke the main town of the South East Tetum-speaking plain. Argentina agreed to share the taxi ride with us to Bekora bus station, one of only two such stations in Dili. All bís heading east depart from Bekora and all bís heading west depart from Tasi-tolu. Bís generally leave very early in the morning starting around 6am and usually finishing before midday. There is no schedule and no booking system. You simply turn up at the bus station and hop on a bís which hopefully has an empty seat and is headed in your direction.

Although Thursday was not a public holiday, most work places were offering the afternoon off, however Daniel’s NGO offered the whole day. So I took the morning off as well to wake up at 4:30am to finish preparing ourselves for the trip. Soon after 5am we were sitting on our verandah waiting for the taxi. It finally arrived at 6am an hour after it should have!

The young man driving seemed very sleepy so I suspected that he had only just woken up and jumped in his car. Whether from his tiredness or simply his poor motor coordination skills, he was a very bad driver and kept veering to the centre of the road while oncoming traffic blared horns at him, warning him to keep to the left side of the road. As we approached the bus station, the driver decided to overtake a slower moving vehicle in front while an oncoming vehicle approached from the opposite direction with very little room to allow a take over.

Zalia, the fifth child and second eldest daughter of our “family” was sitting on the knee of Alberto in the front passenger seat without either one wearing a seatbelt. I could just see her flying through the window and that would have been the end of her. A little scream escaped my throat and our three Timorese adult companions all laughed. The driver said that all malae are tauk (scared). Humph I thought, we’re only tauk because the Timorese have absolutely no concept of safety and constantly risk their lives (and others) with dangerous behavior such as this.

Even before the taxi came to a complete stop, young Timorese men were chasing the car trying to get us to come with them to their bís. I felt a bit overwhelmed by it all, particularly as one of the men walked off with my bag in order to lure us to his bís. Argentina, Alberto and Zalia left on a different bís so we were left to follow the young tout. Upon embarking the bís all eyes were on the malae, few of whom actually catch local transport. We endured being stared at for quite some time particularly as we both struggled to sit next to one another in seats meant for tiny Timorese people. I was not sure that I could endure being so squashed in next to Daniel for the three hour journey.

The bís driver, a red headed middle aged Timorese man, revved the engine as if we were about to leave. We actually sat there for 40 minutes waiting for the bís to fill up all the while the engine was revved as a ploy to trick would-be passengers into believing that this particular bís was about to leave so they should hop on now and find a seat. What a waste of petrol! In the meantime, Daniel sauntered off to purchase some bee (water) and paun (bread rolls). Many hawkers (all of them young boys) tried to sell us the same thing. At 7:10am, not yet full, the bus left the station.

The bís climbed up over the hills to the east that encloses Dili and within no time at all we discovered a segment of the road had half collapsed due to heavy rains or a landslide. The driver deftly negotiated his way around it.

We were both uncomfortable but as long as we kept our legs and arms together each provided the other with something to lean against as we wound our way around the hills. However, the seats sloped not only towards the front but also towards Daniel so I often had to reposition myself as I slowly inched my way onto his seat. Poor Daniel not only had to contend with me encroaching onto his limited space while his left thigh was jammed up against the seat’s arm rest, but he also had a couple of manu (chickens) perched on his feet! As they kokoteek (cackled) in protest at being cramped together, Daniel wondered whether they might start nibbling at his toes.

The scenery was quite beautiful as the road is suspended midway between the sea and the mountains. Much of the road hugged the coast and it reminded me somewhat of the Great Ocean Road in my home state of Victoria. About 23km out of Dili we passed through Metinaro, the training base for the country’s military, the F-FDTL which has been the subject of many recent posts.

At 64km we crossed a long bridge which traverses the muddy brown Laklo River before arriving in Manatutu, capital of the Galoli-speaking region of northern Timor and the district from which the President hails. In the main street, many burnt out and destroyed buildings remained standing and were a stark reminder of the events of 1999. Supposedly a two day coast-to-coast walk begins here which ends up in a nature preserve on the south coast. Both Metinaro and Manatutu are known for their pottery production made by mixing the locally available resources of river clay with beach sand.

Heading 19km further east, we passed through the small town of Laleia which has a beautiful Portuguese church, but we were not able to stop and visit. We again passed over a long bridge and wide brown river. Most of these bridges were built during the Indonesian occupation as virtually no major bridges were constructed during the Portuguese era (to their credit, the Portuguese did pave 7km of road during their 464 year stay!). Any that the retreating Indonesian army and their proxy militia destroyed, have been mostly rebuilt by the Japanese.

From Laleia, we arrived 9km later in Vemasse where we crossed our third and final bridge. This leg of the journey afforded us with the sight of many lush green rice paddy fields before the road turned inland to mostly flat and dry landscape. Finally the bís descended through lush forest as we headed over the edge of the plateau into the town of Baukau. As we approached our destination, the bís conductor collected our fares, a mere $2 each!

Baukau sits at an altitude of 330m and the sea breezes make it cooler than the coast. The town has a clear fresh water spring gushing from the almost vertical cliff face backing the Old Town. The exact spot was chosen by the Portuguese with defence in mind as its location above the sea backed by steep limestone cliffs allowed both attacks from the water and inland to be repelled. An interesting fact about Baukau is that during the Portuguese era, it was once northern Australia’s top honeymoon destination! (Thanks to Lonely Planet for some of the factual information in this post)

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Timorese man killed near Daniel’s workplace

The young man mentioned in this article, was killed in the street where Daniel works. Martial arts groups (effectively male youth street gangs) are a growing problem for Timor particularly in the capital where 40% of the youth are unemployed. Approximately 20% of men and surprisingly, 5% of women are members of martial arts groups in Timor.

“RTTL reported a fight between two martial groups in Kolmera, Dili on Monday night which left one man dead and one seriously injured. RTTL reported that 22-year-old Liborio Martins died of stab wounds. Minister of Interior Rogerio Lobato laments that a life has been lost due to martial arts groups problems. He said a total of 32 people are being investigated.”

Source: RTTL News Monitoring (from UNOTIL Public Information Office, Daily Media Review)

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Fourth workshop on women’s participation in the 2007 elections

Today I attended the fourth workshop on women’s participation in the 2007 elections. It was held at the City Café, THE hangout for the Portuguese ex-pats, which to its credit, bakes the best paun (bread) available in Dili for a mere $1 a loaf.

I was interested to see that I was the only malae in attendance although at least two Indonesians, one who works for UNIFEM and the other who lectures at UNTL (the national university), were also attending. About 100 people were in attendance.

Everyone spoke in Tetum so I could only pick up bits and pieces, although much more than I could nine months ago. Obviously my language skills have improved. However, as it grew quite wearing to listen, I read a fifteen page document in English called Towards a new electoral framework in Timor-Leste: on the legal framework, proportional representation and choice of electoral systems by the International Federation of Electoral Systems (IFES).

It was fascinating to read as Timor’s Constitution states that only proportional representation (PR) may be used, but as there are many methods of PR, the parliament has to decide on which one in order to pass an electoral law before the elections next year. The three methods discussed had their advantages and disadvantages and I am personally set on one in particular. As a firm supporter of PR (as it is the most democratic system available), I look forward to hearing the debates in parliament about which particular method will be chosen for this country.

A woman in her 40s wearing her finest aqua blue dress with matching silver blue sandals sat near me and who I came to believe had a rather sad history. The fingers on both her hands had been cut off from just below the knuckles and reattached as long scars were clearly visible. She had very little movement in any of her fingers and the pointer finger on her left hand was permanently bent. I noticed that she found it a challenge to write. Her right arm had a number of healed but deep gashes which I suspected were related to her finger injuries. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was a victim of a machete attack or torture during the Indonesian occupation or perhaps domestic violence. I wondered about her a great deal and my heart shed a few tears as her suffering was clearly visible.

I was able to meet three very different Timorese women during the course of the day. The first was a woman aged 31 who studies Accounting at UNTL (the national university). She is originally from Balibo in Bobonaro district which borders Indonesian West Timor. Balibo is infamous in Australia for the murder of five journalists by the Indonesian military as they invaded Timor in December 1975. The murdered journalists have been immortalised as the ‘Balibo Five’. This young woman’s English was very good so we were able to converse with each other easily.

The second woman was probably in her 40s, small and tubby with no waist (as mentioned in earlier posts, overweight Timorese do exist). She was very warm and we spoke in Tetum about her work and mine. She works for the only local NGO that works for and with Timorese female sex workers by providing them with counselling and health advice such as the need for clients to wear condoms to prevent STIs and HIV/AIDS (more on that subject to come in a future post). I really admired this woman’s courage to work in such a highly stigmatized area in Timor. I also really liked her.

The third woman was a “traditional” Timorese woman in her 50s or 60s. She wore a tais-feto (sarong worn by women) with a mismatched jacket/top fastened together with safety pins (I have yet to see one of these jackets with buttons or clasps). She wore her hair in a bun and her teeth were very worn down (but not it would appear from chewing bua (betelnut) as her teeth and gums were not stained red). She also wore a number of silver bangles on her wrists which jangled when she moved her arms about; and up and down her forearms were many tattoos and I again wondered a great deal about their origin.

Tia (aunt) as she insisted I call her is a gifted and well sought after tais (decorative cloth) maker from Oecusse, the ex-clave of Timor in Indonesian West Timor. Her creations are purchased by the government to give to visiting dignitaries. She uses only the finest cotton which is the traditional material of tais, but which today can only be purchased in Indonesian West Timor. (Most tais for sale in Timor are made from cheaper man made materials and not considered as good for this reason.) Tia was very demonstrative and kept touching my hands and arms when she spoke and as I intently listened to her in Tetum, I warmed to her immediately.

Tia works for an NGO in Dili not far from my home. I made arrangements to visit her in a couple of week’s time so that I could see her work. She asked me to write my name down and my favourite colours as she wants to make me a small tais woven with my name. Naturally I chose kór-violeta (purple), verde (green) and mutin (white) the feminist colours.

I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my day with these women. At the conclusion of the workshop I felt quite elated, a feeling so seldom felt living in Timor that I hoped the feeling would remain for just a little while longer.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Computer up and running

It only took five weeks but finally on Thursday, my computer’s CPU fan was replaced with a new part purchased from Australia.

I originally consulted a young Indonesian man that my NGO employs on a regular basis to fix the myriad of IT problems that besets them (often due to the frequent power blackouts which quickly wear out our computers).

However, his customer service skills were so appalling (it took me four full days of persistent badgering to retrieve my computer from him) and moreover that I would have to wait until he next visited Indonesia to look for the part, that I decided to look elsewhere.

I then consulted a bloke from Singapore who said that he would need to email his home country to see if the part was available and would then call me. To this day, he has not called.

With ever growing frustration, I consulted an Australian IT consultant who is regularly employed by Daniel’s NGO. Within half an hour of Daniel texting him with the problem, he arrived to look at my computer. He said he would need to email Australia and would get back to Daniel within three days. This he duly did and said that he had procured the part for us, although it would take two weeks to arrive. On Thursday he replaced the dead CPU fan with the new one. Finally!

The whole incident demonstrated again not only how poor Timor is, that the part had to be procured from Australia, Indonesia or Singapore, but also the lack of human resources and education amongst the Timorese population which led me to consult three foreign men. Moreover, I learnt first hand the differences in customer service offered by three different cultures (although I wouldn't want to generalise these single experiences too far). I certainly know which one I prefer!

After five weeks without films and television series we were very keen to start watching the many DVDs I have honed my retail therapy skills on. The first night we brought the computer home we watched the first episode of the second series of Desperate Housewives. It was so good to watch, but when I went out to the kitchen during “intermission” I realised I was still in Timor and not back home. What a downer that was!

We followed this up with an episode from the second series of Spooks which was one I hadn’t seen. It wasn’t one of the better episodes but it was still good to watch. On Friday night we watched the Italian film Respiro which was a lovely little gem set in southern Italy. Last night we watched Ali G the Movie which had its wildly funny moments but was definitely not a movie I could recommend.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

The farewell for my Indonesian colleague

Just as I was about to leave for lunch, my other malae colleague said that our only Indonesian colleague was leaving tomorrow and a farewell lunch was being held in her honour today. Yet again, nobody told me! (I don’t know what it is about my NGO, but its communication channels are woeful.)

I her how she was feeling about leaving Timor. She was sad because she really loved Timor and plans to come back again in the future. She has been here merely one year.

I am totally perplexed as to why she loves it here so much. Her home country has much higher human development than Timor and moreover, she’s Indonesian in a country that was brutally occupied by her home country’s government and military for twenty-four years. I can therefore only assume the following.

One, My Timorese colleagues are not bothered by the fact that she is Indonesian (which is positive).

Two, That because they share a common language (Bahasa Indonesia) they are able to easily communicate and therefore, get to know each other.

Three, she is young and single as many of my colleagues are, and has formed a very tight knit group with the team she works with.

One, I am a malae and Australian at that; my culture is completely and utterly different from Timor’s which is much closer to Indonesia’s than Australia’s.

Two, I do not share a common language.

Three, I am not young and single. Are these the reasons why I feel so alienated at work? Mmmmm, I’m beginning to wonder.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

East Timor’s troubled military

“The current crisis among East Timor's military could be a reflection of the country's cultural growing pains.

On 8 February 2006, some 350 officers and soldiers from East Timor’s small defence force abandoned their posts and marched to the Presidential Palace. The unarmed soldiers protested against ill treatment, discriminatory practices and poor conditions within the Timorese Defence Forces (FDTL).

After two unsuccessful attempts at mediating the crisis, the young nation’s charismatic and widely respected President Xanana Gusmao gave the mutineers an ultimatum: “Return to your posts and you shall not face court martial, or face the consequences of doing otherwise.” Only 25 took the offer. Since its creation in 2002, the Forcas Armadas de Defesa de Timor Leste (FDTL), has faced serious disciplinary problems. Before the 8 February incident, 60 other personnel, including a major, were charged for indiscipline.

Most observers explain the current problem as something to be expected when a 24-year old guerrilla force is transformed into a regular army. While this explanation may have some merit, it fails to address far more fundamental issues. First of all, most of the disciplinary cases involved young soldiers who had little or no participation in the war of national liberation. Most of them were new conscripts who had joined the force in 2002. Therefore, the causes of the current military crisis in East Timor are far deeper and may have severe consequences for the young nation if not properly addressed.

Regionalism is one such cause fuelling the current crisis. During the war for national liberation against the Suharto regime, most of the military campaigns took place on the eastern side of the island. This was due to the natural conditions favourable to guerrilla warfare and to the fact that the western part of the country was too close to the Indonesian border. As a result, most of the guerrilla force was made up of people from the east, or "Loro Sae". Indeed, almost all of the new army’s high-ranking officers are easterners.

This situation has led many to accuse the FDTL of being a "Firaku" or eastern-dominated force. Soldiers originating from the western part of the island accuse eastern officers of favouritism in promotion and double standards when it comes to discipline. To complicate matters further, Timor’s National Police Force (PNTL) has a high number of western personnel particularly among its senior officers. Once again the demands of the war of national liberation created this situation. The more educated and urbanized people, suited for police work, came from the western side of the island and many served previously in the Indonesian bureaucracy, giving them the advantage of experience.

President Xanana’s strategy of promoting national reconciliation allowed for the integration of many former Indonesian functionaries and pro-autonomy elements into the security forces, especially the police force. PNTL’s current commander Commissioner Paulo Martins was a former Colonel in the Indonesian Police.

This has led many in the military to see the 3,500-strong police force as illegitimate and Western-dominated. The need to focus on internal security, rather than external threats, due to remarkable improvements in relations with Jakarta, means that the police rather than the military has benefited from government attention. The donor community's reluctance to fund the military further exacerbates the problem.

As a result, the PNTL is a far larger and better equipped force, perceived to enjoy a higher standing within Timorese society, while the military, who claims - and rightly so - to have made the most sacrifices in the struggle for national liberation, is being marginalized. The rivalry between the military and the police is clearly demonstrated by the type of disciplinary cases reported in the FDTL. Nearly 70 per cent of the cases involved confrontations of one type or another, between police officers and military personnel and invariably, the regionalism element was always a contributing factor.

The root causes of the current military crisis in East Timor are far deeper than the mere challenges of transition from a guerrilla force to a regular army. Confidence-building measures between the two forces - the police and the military - are critically needed, particularly among the rank and file. Nearly four years after independence, East Timor does not yet possess a military disciplinary code, let alone a defence policy. Addressing some of these deficiencies may go some way in taming Timor’s young and wild military. But, above all, there is a need to recognize that the current military crisis is more than just a problem of transition from a guerrilla force to a regular one.”

Reprinted with permission of the IDSS. Copyright (c) 2006 Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Blk S4, Level B4, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798. (ISN Security Watch-East) (from UNOTIL Public Information Office, Daily Media Review).

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

WFP starts food program in schools

“The World Food Program (WFP) is now providing food to schools in five districts. According to the Memorandum of Understanding signed by WFP and the Government of Timor-Leste, WFP will provide lunch and supplemental food for schools. The program started two months ago in the districts of Covalima, Bobonaro, Oecussi, Ainaro and Liquiça. The program will soon start in Dili District focusing first on the island of Ataúro. The School Director of Maumeta, Liquiça, Rozinha de Jesus said, since the program began the students are much more eager to attend classes and the numbers continue to increase. De Jesus said that before this, not many students could attend class up to twelve thirty because they could not bear being hungry and the long distance they had to walk back. She hopes that the food provided will strengthen their learning capacity, but it is too soon to tell. Food supplements (ground maize) are also being distributed to pregnant mothers. Each pregnant mother is entitled to 9 kilogram of the maize and oil. Breastfeeding mothers are entitled to 15 kilogram of maize (9 for mother and 6 for child). A total of 72 pregnant mothers and 104 breastfeeding mothers have benefited from the program.”

Source: Timor Post (from UNOTIL Public Information Office, Daily Media Review)

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

The dollar sign on my forehead continues

This morning after I disembarked from a “mikrolet” and as I was walking down the street to work, I noticed a man crouched in the shade of a brick fence directly opposite my place of work. I decided for some reason to cross the road but no sooner had I done so than the man stood up, walked across the road and approached me. What could he want I wondered? He immediately put out his hand and asked if I spoke English or Tetum. I replied Tetum but he then talked at such a pace and with what I believe was a speaking impediment that I only caught bits and pieces of what he was saying. I certainly got the gist of it and didn’t like where the conversation was heading. I apologised that I couldn’t understand all of what he said in Tetum and could he please explain in English. But first, could we move to the shade of the outside waiting room at my work place, as having such a conversation in the blistering sun was highly unpleasant.

I offered him a seat and he began again in English. However, he was not fluent and this combined with his speech impediment made it difficult for me to fully understand him. However, I was able to understand the essential points. He was an unemployed man with a wife and two children: one age two years and one age two months. He lived in Comoro a suburb on the way to my home. He did not have any money with which to buy food and asked if I would give him money to at least buy a bag of rice so that his two month old baby could eat. I asked him where his family (of origin) was and he said in Aileu. I felt for his children as I do for all the hundreds of thousands of malnourished and starving children in Timor, but again, I was angry that I was being treated as a bank or ATM machine by this stranger.

I asked him how he knew who I was and where I worked and I believe he said something about a colleague working at my work place but I couldn’t be sure. I was and remain perplexed as to how he came to know of me as I do not live in the same village as he. Still, I stick out like a sore thumb because I am “malae”.

It was difficult for me to say this to him but I apologised and said that I could not give him any money. However, I said that I might be able to put his family onto a nutrition program run by an AVI colleague at the Dili National Hospital, which gives food to malnourished children. I went inside my work place and rang my colleague who said she could help if the man brought the child(ren) to her after 2pm. I instructed the man what to do and drew him a map of where on the hospital grounds my colleague’s NGO is located. He had asked for money for a taxi to get there but I decided to give him 50c which was enough for two “mikrolet” trips: one to get home to fetch the baby, and the other to get to the hospital.

I walked back inside my work place and immediately went and talked to my only other “malae” colleague about it. I was so angry to be again treated as if I am nothing but a bank by the Timorese (not to mention that I was accosted outside my work place!). Any relationship of some substance I have with a Timorese be it at work or home is sullied because of the dollar sign branded on my forehead. It is therefore just about impossible to have a genuine friendship with a Timorese because inevitably, they ask for something which is usually money. It makes me so angry because I feel so dehumanised by it. We talked at length about this problem. She said it is a common complaint of “malae” in Timor but how to find a way to deal with it?

My colleague suggested that in order to protect myself, I need to set very firm boundaries and just say, no, sorry I cannot help you and leave it at that with no justification(s) for the reasons. I told her I find this very difficult to do. She said that it takes time and practice but is essential for my own sanity. Moreover, a “malae” saying no to a Timorese possibly begins to teach them that they simply cannot go on asking “malae” for money. It creates a relationship of dependence that is simply not sustainable, not to mention dehumanising for both parties.

My saying no to this stranger was difficult but necessary. However, these incidences keep occurring and each time they do, I feel more and more that I cannot go on living here. I am an outsider, and although a privileged one, I am finding it more and more difficult living in a society where I am not an equal and treated the same as everybody else. I do not like my outsider status and wish to be admitted back “inside” but that is not and never will be possible in Timor.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Darkness at Noon

This morning I finished reading Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler a Hungarian born but British naturalised writer. Published in 1940 the book is considered one of the greats of the twentieth century and having read it, I understand why. It is a powerful story about a Russian Revolutionary of the old guard who in the 1930s is arrested by Stalin’s secret police in the dead of night for Counter Revolutionary activities. Through the story of one man the book is both a sociological and psychological portrayal of the Soviet State and the appalling things the State did to its own citizens in the name of the Revolution. Moreover, the book explores beautifully the old political maxim: the end justifies the means.

Having studied Russian and German politics in first year university (and consequently suffering from a mini emotional breakdown which resulted in the decision not to continue with politics as my major), I understood the historical and political backdrop to the novel. In fact, I believe I was encouraged to read Koestler’s book along with Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky as a complement to the academic texts we were studying. Due to the mini emotional breakdown, I never got around to it but now, nine years later and with sufficient emotional distance, I may now be able to read these Russian classics (Dostoevsky awaits on my bookshelf). However, upon reading the final chapter, I could feel the emotions welling up inside of me and I shed a few tears for the main character who I knew, was based on a real person(s).

I told a newly arrived AVIer recently that I was reading Koestler’s book and although she had not heard of it, when I told her what it was about, she said why on earth would you want to read it here in Timor when you’re already suffering so much? I replied because in some respects it makes me happy, for all the myriad of problems that besets this country, at least it doesn’t have a totalitarian dictatorship!

I highly commend this book to you.

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Timor Leste press essential in building national identity

By Janet Steele Fulbright Lecturer, Dr. Soetomo Press Institute Column: Di-Tetun-kan

“A visitor to Dili who picked up Suara Timor Timur during Indonesian times would have found a solid 12-page newspaper published in one language: Indonesian. Like other Indonesian papers, STT was obliged to publish stories based on the statements of public officials. But STT usually managed to include other points of view as well, sometimes based on interviews with Dili's Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, reports from human rights activists, or comments from faculty at University of East Timor. It also published articles on sensitive topics such as poverty, joblessness, prostitution, and disease, stories that often resulted in phone calls or worse --from the military authorities.

After the fall of President Suharto, Suara Timor Timur became more outspoken. In September 1998, it published an interview with Falintil Commander Taur Matan Ruak that sold over 10,000 copies and broke all records for newspaper circulation in East Timor. In the months leading up to the referendum, the paper was independent enough to ignite the fury of pro-Indonesia militias, and in April 1999 its office was ransacked. Reopening a few weeks later, STT was more cautious and, according to some, more in line with the pro-Jakarta views of its editor-in-chief, Salvador J. Ximenes Soares. The last edition of STT was published on September 3, 1999.

The situation in Timor Leste is very different today. Dili now has three dailies: Diario Nacional, Timor Post, and Suara Timor Lorosae-the reincarnation of STT, which Salvador Soares brought back to publication in 2000 at the invitation of Xanana Gusmao. Although Suara Timor Lorosae is still a 12-page paper, it now contains four different languages: Portuguese, Tetun, Indonesian, and English. Like the other papers, its circulation rarely tops 1,000.

Today many Timorese officials express disappointment with the quality and performance of the press, saying that it lacks professionalism. Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said "Our main problem is that media are trying to cover issues that they don't understand. They don't even read the official documents. This is a completely open government…they can have whatever information they like. But they don't. They are always spreading rumors, and making news and information based on rumors."

Taur Matan Ruak, now the Commander of the Timor Leste Armed Forces, said "When I make an interview and the next day I read it in the newspaper, I sometimes ask, 'is it true, did I say that?'" But are these problems really the sign of a lack of professionalism, or are they the result of a problem with language? Timor Leste now has two official languages: Portuguese and Tetun. The vast majority of Timorese journalists can't understand Portuguese. Although they speak Tetun day-to-day, they say that they prefer to write in Indonesian. Why? In addition to having been trained in the Indonesian language, they point out that there are no written rules of grammar for Tetun, and no consistent spelling. Moreover, there are different regional dialects. As Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said, when journalists write in Tetun, it is as if "each one is pronouncing it for himself."

Many of Timor Leste's public officials prefer to use Portuguese, especially those who left the country after 1975. Taur Matan Ruak, who spent 24 years in the jungle and speaks no Indonesian, said "My mother language is Tetun, but Portuguese is more rich. Tetun is okay, but sometimes where you say one word in Portuguese, in Tetun you need ten."

When the government issues a press release in Portuguese, journalists can't read it. At the Timor Post, there is only one journalist who can understand Portuguese. At Suara Timor Lorosae there are two, and at Diario Nacional there is not even one. Domingos Saldanha, the deputy publisher and editor-in-chief of STL, said that when the President makes an important speech in Portuguese, before it can be published it has to be "di-Tetun-kan." Language, like culture, is essential to national identity. If you ask a person to change his language, you are asking him to change his identity. Journalists who once wrote stories that, in the words of STL managing editor Metha Guterres, helped to "give the Timorese people a sense of self-worth", are now being asked to write in languages that are at best awkward and at worst unfamiliar.

Everyone in Timor Leste agrees that independent media are essential to the development of the new nation. But exactly what forms will that media take? And in what language? Although no one in Timor Leste has intentionally marginalized Timorese journalists, this is exactly what has happened. It would be a tragedy if the journalists who helped to build a sense of Timorese national identity were shut out by the language policy of the very nation they helped create.”

Source: Pacific Media Watch Online (from UNOTIL Public Information Office, Daily Media Review)

Category: Timor-Leste (East Timor)